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3 responses to “What have the Romans ever done for us?”

A Pothole in Hampshire ripped out my £175 3 month old Bridgestones & cracked my Audi (£550) alloy, which will have to be replaced, cost £750 for damaged parts £120 temporary replacement tyre for MOT, £50 disposal of damaged wheel, & not including 4 months of my time, stress, phoning for replacement wheels, & not using my car properly or on motorway. Ive informed council of other defects of similar size on road as one that damaged my vehicle but an ‘inspector for HCC’ says ‘they are safe for road users’ so nothing has been done about them, but as a tax payer and victim i have a very different opinion, the pothole which damaged my vehicle was no larger than 150mm, why do the council wait until the pothole is a significant size before they repair? Because ITS CHEAPER FOR THEM TO! All they have to do is inspect the road x number of times per year (4 times for the road that damaged my vehicle) and as long as their inspector considers it ‘safe’ or more cost effective to wait until the defect actually damages property, then emergency repair it, they’re forfilling their statutory duties. The council should repair any hole or defect in the road. Isn’t that what my £300 per year road tax is for?! And if you try and claim they will say as they’ve inspected the road, under section 50 road traffic act 1980 you can’t claim against them unless they are negligent of their statutory duties, however as they are leaving potholes to become significant before repairing them how can any reasonable person not consider them to be negligent? I always put the best products in and on my car and it’s extremely expensive to service, MOT and tax, why should i then have to pay repair bills because the council are cost cutting and not dealing with minor potholes until they become a major issue, but unfortunately by that time in many cases the damage has already been done. The only way of getting the council to compensate parties is by taking them to court something that shouldn’t be necessary if your vehicle has been damaged due to the council neglecting to repair our roads, with all the recent media about increasing potholes and people trying to save money you would think the council would be doing more.

The roads around my home town in Southport are awful. Last 6 months they have dug up the same bit of road 3 times. A sump begins to appear again and they come and cover it over with tarmac overnight which is just a temporary fix. This goes on till it gets so bad it caves in and they are then there for weeks fixing it properly.

There seems to be a real mentality of patch work fixes here and there rather than relaying part of road at night time. Surely the councils could get some of this work done swiftly at night. I’ve seen
whole stretches of roads relayed in less time than its taken teams of guys to stand around tutting and shaking their heads over a small pot hole.